re: What’s the smartest financial decision you’ve ever made?

I have more than just one, apologies that I can't follow instructions.

1. Marrying the right woman. She also ended up as a senior VP of a large financial firm. That's a nice bonus.

2. Never trying to time the market. As the saying goes, "time in the market always outperforms trying to time the market". Make your buys and let time and compounding interest do it's thing.

3. Stayed away from carrying credit card debt as much as possible. It happened from time to time when my wife and I were young and broke, but we would erase that debt as soon as we possibly could.

4. We always have a budget. No matter how much money we make, we always have a budget that was below our means. We aren't always strict, but the guardrails are always there.

5. Didn't buy expensive cars. We buy nice cars, mostly new as well, but nothing extravagant or overly expensive and we keep them for a long time. Vehicles are a financial drain on multiple levels, it's a place that can get out of hand financially if you aren't careful.

6. Real estate. We bought some rentals properties cheap and sold them at opportune times for a significant gain.

I got a financial advisor that was new to the business about 20 years ago. He had a fresh set of eyes and ideas and has made some great investments over the years.

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start early and when you talk to a financial advisor you will realize how much you already know.

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A smart financial decision is not hiring a financial advisor and just putting your money into an index fund or etf. Financial advisors are completely worthless. Maybe about the same amount of worthlessness as real estate agents.